Ovid Metamorphoses
by rosereldew
Summary: They were partners, yes, but they were more. In some sense, anyways. (Euriarty)


_I do not own Sherlock the television show, Jim Moriarty, or Eurus Holmes._

* * *

The first time he saw her, he saw Sherlock. He saw Sherlock in her wide, horrendously intelligent eyes. He saw Sherlock in the way she held herself, her body so _calculated_ in its relaxation, its composure.

He saw Sherlock in her frown.

Jim Moriarty stepped closer to Eurus Holmes, taking in the glass between them, and called out, "I'm your Christmas present. So what's mine?"

* * *

Why he had been needed in an insane asylum had been unknown to him at first. Apparently, Mycroft said, the third Holmes child resided there- genius was one step away from insanity, they said.

She wanted five unsupervised minutes with him. Jim knew that he would never turn away an opportunity to meet Sherlock's sister. She'd be one more thorn in his side, one more pressure point. Perfect. Already, Jim had another pawn in his plan. Another cog in the machine, if he played his cards right.

He left Sherrinford with another feeling, the comfortable settling into someone _else's_ plan, someone _else's_ vision, and he felt as if it didn't matter as long as he was getting what he wanted: Sherlock Holmes's attention. And pain.

* * *

"Redbeard."

Jim watched Eurus's eyes as they trailed his chest and body. He let them. She wasn't unattractive, and strangely, the idea of fucking a woman who understood everything you were thinking was hugely desirable now. Some blood had already left his head to...travel elsewhere, but Jim was still plenty smart. How had he come to those thoughts so quickly? He wondered if she could influence things, people, the way he did, but somehow…

Yet, did it matter? Didn't he want what she wanted?

Jim and furrowed his brow. Then, she began to move, and he followed suit, almost trying to decipher her motions, trying to understand this beautiful, mad, cryptic woman and her mind.

They mirrored each other, her to him, him to her, neither breaking attention for the other, not daring to, not daring to let the other return to their brilliant thoughts.

Finally, she stepped back, somehow agonizingly, and said, "You know my brother, Jim Moriarty."

"I know Mycroft-"

"No." Her voice was artificially hard. "Sherlock."

Jim chuckled.

"Oh, yes, you could say that! I know him quite well."

"Redbeard is the dog that he never had. The dog he thinks I killed…" she trailed off, then continued with a look at Jim, "You must know that Sherlock is weak, Jim, a weak and fallible man…"

"You could say that," Jim repeated knowingly, though he'd have thought of Sherlock as less "weak" and more "weak enough" and "touchy". "So, has Sherlock cooked up that memory because he's...blocking something worse out?"

"Yes." She was not impressed by him. Pity, Jim would have deflated if he'd cared a little more.

So, Sherlock had blamed his sister for killing a fake dog because something more painful had happened to him? It seemed unlikely that Eurus would offer up herself to say that she'd killed his dog, or at least that the family would let her, so she probably did do- kill- something. And she was in an asylum, so she certainly hadn't been happy and well-adjusted.

Jim's thoughts snapped back to the pool, the sappy concern Sherlock had had for his friend, the flash of panic on his face… Almost as if…

"You didn't kill another kid, right Eurus?" Jim asked with an easy grin, "Right? Because if you did, you made my job a _lot_ easier…"

"Yes," she said again. Then, coolly as though his deductions were equivalent to what she did when she was four, "I know how much you want to hurt him."

Jim was unsure how to analyze what she'd said. Maybe- no, probably- she wanted it that way.

"Eh, well, I'll plead guilty to that…soon. It's not quite time yet, though."

"No."

Jim smiled. "Not judging me, right, Eurus? Neither of us are good people, I'd say."

For the first time, raw _emotion_ flashed on her face. Anger, disgust, sharp and clear and somehow, beautiful. He took a quick breath in, relishing this woman's unfiltered self- something that even as geniuses they all had, Sherlock, Mycroft, _Eurus,_ and…

"'Good'", Eurus said bitterly, her features twisted into an exquisite little snarl, "and 'evil' are constructs we use to justify socially compliant behavior. I don't need 'good' or 'evil'."

Before he could say anything more, she snapped, "You are going to help me, Moriarty. I need you."

Ah, she needed him. He looked her up and down again, not a bad woman to need him. He did know that she knew that, and she knew that he knew. But somehow, he didn't see the harm in imagining his hands on her thighs, under her breasts, in her hair… Did she know _that?_ He smirked at the possibility.

"You are going to tell me as much as I need to know about Sherlock, Mycroft, John Watson…" she continued, not explaining how she knew of Watson, "and I will help you construct your revenge- even when you are dead."

"When I'm dead-"

"Yes," Eurus said unflinchingly, "as you want to be- if it helps you kill him in the end."

"Ah." Moriarty smiled again and had to agree. "Have to agree. But we can't do much in five minutes, with what, a minute ten seconds left?"

Eurus looked at the camera and smiled at him, collected and sultry- oh, she did know what she was doing to him… Jim kept calm, and smiled back. Did something flash under her irises? No, but she wouldn't let it.

"Mycroft thinks I can't leave here. I can."

Then, her fingers were in his hair, her lips on his, and he left feeling as though he'd just witnessed the greatest mind perhaps alive.

Jim was a supergenius, of course, but Eurus could see, plan, deduce more than he ever could. He would see her again in two weeks at the Larklester inn, ordering white wine and chips, in Bristol.

Her lips tasted like dust and desperation. He'd die if he tasted like that. How could she stand it?

* * *

Her lips were painted light pink when he saw her next, with blonde hair and green eyes, hot in a different way- hot in the way the girls he met in bars were, had been, until he found out fucking them was like fucking monkeys who had nothing better to do than lay around and get pounded, then go on to a life that was just about as complex and challenging.

She wouldn't be like this. He knew she wouldn't be.

"He laid me off," she said bitterly, "Can't believe it. Remember, Mr. Wonaky said he thought I was the best informaticist in the clinic?"

Jim processed the sentence- it worked itself around in his brain normally, the straightforward way, but in the peripheries of his mind, he saw the first words of each of her sentences lining up…

He can't remember.

"It's so unbelievable," Eurus continued, "Not like I was messing up every week. Your old boss- Onek, said that you needed to look 'less Irish'? Job in, job out, and your advice is to look less Irish!"

It's not your job. Jim couldn't mistake it.

"No, I can't look less Irish," Jim chuckled, "I never heard of that before her. She wanted English clerks. Racism to the max."

It would be suspicious if both of them talked in the same, clipped, style. He guessed Eurus was to clue him in, like he was an idiot. Did she know that he was hiding the key word as the second word in the sentence?

Yes, she told him as they went to bed. And he'd picked up on it- good. Now, did he want to fuck her? Because they could, she was curious about sex with someone in a nice bed and inn and for reasons other than experimentation without regard to gender.

Yes, he'd said, and the way she'd wrapped her legs around him, the way she touched him, elicited moans and hisses that from his curled lips that he didn't think himself capable of emitting, didn't seem at all like that of a deprived asylum inmate. It was quite terrifying, yet to him she was all the more fascinating and the more he felt like he was being subsumed in pleasure, the more he was afraid of losing his mind momentarily, he knew she was fearing the same. No longer was he fucking gerbils. Good.

* * *

Jim had thought to himself, idly, before that the partner who woke up first was somehow of greater mental power, acuity, able to will themselves awake when they needed to in order to escape scrutiny from their lover, or anyone else for that matter, then be on their way.

He pondered this as he gazed upon Eurus's sleeping form in the sharp, frigid light of morning. Maybe she didn't need to be ahead of the game- maybe she was bored as fuck out there, and wanted to let him catch up, just a little bit.

Eurus looked like a normal person sleeping, her pink lips parted softly, (waiting to suck his dick again, some carnal part of him thought), her cheeks flushed. She could have been any girl who got drunk and slept with the first handsome stranger to look her way.

Well, she _was_ a normal person, wasn't she? Being of unparalleled brilliance didn't mean one had to sleep oddly. So, to avoid thinking of her as less dangerous than she was, Jim dressed and figured that she would find him if she needed him.

* * *

She _did_ find him, many more times, in many more bars and many more streets, parks, and restaurants. And beds. She detailed Sherlock's activities, whereabouts, successes and failures, and Jim's special task: to record videos mocking Sherlock from beyond the grave.

What, Jim thought after another rendezvous in a hotel room, did he do to deserve this woman, who had given him the opportunity to reach into Sherlock Holmes's mind, to torment him, even while dead? Such a power, such a power.

Once or twice a week, it seemed, she was there. And Jim wanted, on some level, to believe that she just _liked_ him. That he was exciting to her. She was utterly brilliant in that she could slip around England, track him down, and be back at Sherrinford before the next afternoon. Maybe he was a challenge. A moving target… Jim momentarily imagined catching Eurus off guard, cornering her, besting her in wits, but somehow the thought disturbed him. That wasn't _Eurus_ then, was it?

Often he asked her if she'd fallen in love with him, and was ready to leave Sherrinford and join him for good. He was about a quarter serious. She was completely serious when she told him to knock it off.

* * *

When the gun was in Jim's mouth, his finger on the trigger, he was thinking of her. She wanted this. She knew what this could do. Being alive didn't much interest him, as she'd said herself. Sherlock would be worse off if Jim were dead.

He'd never know that his vile hatred of Sherlock disgusted her. He'd never know, though he'd have liked to, that his independence and genius drew her to him like a dog to meat, instinctively and animalistically pulled into his orbit, though she never let herself completely give into his gravity.

No, Jim was happy to die. It was okay. Eurus had said so. He'd known so. Sherlock would never forgive him- now _that_ was a laugh!

Just pull the trigger. Just pull the trigger. Just pull the-

* * *

Eurus didn't feel sad, she realized, that Jimmy was gone. She wasn't surprised.

She was surprised, though, that she wanted to be.

The violin music from Eurus's cell sounded like the dusty, bleak memories of once bright and vibrant sex, excitement, thrill. It wafted throughout the halls, awake and shining and out of place in this dank, conformist wannabe prison.

The violin music sounded like Jim Moriarty.


End file.
